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Israeli ISPs Caught Interfering With P2P Traffic
Fuzzzy writes "For a long time, people have suspected that Israeli ISPs are blocking or delaying P2P traffic. However, no hard evidence was provided, and the ISPs denied any interference. Today Ynetnews published a report on comprehensive research that for the first time proves those suspicions. Using Glasnost and Switzerland, an Internet attorney / blogger found evidence of deep packet inspection and deliberate delays. From the article: 'Since 2007 Ynet has received complaints according to which Israeli ISPs block P2P traffic. Those were brought to the media and were dismissed by the ISPs. Our findings were that there is direct and deliberate interference in P2P traffic by at least two out of the three major ISPs and that this interference exists by both P2P caching and P2P blocking.'"
FWIW I heard from a wireless provider's salesperson that all of the major Internet Service Providers in Japan have a policy that after 300GB traffic per month connection speed will be throttled down.
I calculate this means that a 1Mbps video connection 24x7 would barely fit under this threshold.
1 mbit/sec *3600 = 3600 mbit/hr
3600 / 8 = 400 MBytes/hr
400 * 24 * 30 = 288000 MB/mo. = 288 GB/mo.
I wouldn't mind paying more if the companies would just stop adding all kinds of crazy rules.
The worst is the huge amount paid for access speeds which while respectable themselves, are being sold at many times the effective rate. ISPs should be required to sell unfettered access at the same rate they pay for it, plus a fixed rate (say 5-10%) to ensure market growth.
How gutless of the ISP to not admit it. EVERY ISP outside of perhaps the USA and Europe does it. Bandwidth is just too expensive not to. Many ISP's in Australia denied it for years, until they were 'outed' by one honest ISP who told everyone up front what they were doing.
Most of these isps try to justify their actions with the excuse that they need to restrict pvp users so that other users consuming less bandwidth can enjoy decent surfing/transfer rates. While arguably laudable, what really irks me is that these plans were largely sold to users (including pvp users) as non-capped unlimited bandwidth plans. If they wish to restrict or apply caps, they should be up-front about it. And by up-front, I don't mean burying it in the contract's fine print. These throttling and scanning attempts would likely lead to civil suits for breach of contract, fraud and/or deceptive advertising in any other industry. It's surely not a coincidence that the Israeli and Japanese ISPs referred to are actively trying to hide their actions. The difficulty is that it is difficult for individual users to challenge the actions of these ISPs who more often than not have deep pockets or a near monopoly over internet connectivity in their sphere of the world. Corporate bullying at its best.
I do question the level of this research. Just as one example of sloppines: They describe checktor as "a company that’s meant to assist copyright holders," yet in the link they provide, it is very clear that checktor (a non-profit that scans torrents for viruses) has nothing to do with assisting copyright holders. In fact the page is telling copyright holders to bug off.
Mod points: Guaranteed to remove your sense of humor.
Side effects may include gullibility and temporary retardation
For the last year or so I've been in Israel, so naturally my ISP is Israeli.
I've spent countless hours with them on the phone trying to get around this thing. I told them bittorrent was acting ridiculously slow, but they gave me the old excuse of "not our fault, it's p2p" which I was willing to accept for a while.
Then I noticed skype started messing with me, giving me ridiculous dial-up quality sound. Fun fact, my ISP is also a phone provider.
Makes you wonder.
o hai